


Step-Quack-Step-Quack

by ForMyBabies (BooksandKpop)



Series: The Brotherhood of the Travelling Duck Slippers [1]
Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: College AU, Drabble, Gen, Kun narrator kind of, No ships just dumb best bros Yangyang/Hendery/Xiaojun, i wrote this in like an hour and a half, no this is not edited, this is dumb but it's fun i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooksandKpop/pseuds/ForMyBabies
Summary: Kun was just doing some late night shopping when he happened upon a strange sight. Two boys with their legs tied together, wearing...duck slippers?
Series: The Brotherhood of the Travelling Duck Slippers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1577908
Comments: 11
Kudos: 42
Collections: WIP OLYMPICS: WINTER 2019/20





	Step-Quack-Step-Quack

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in ages but I saw this prompt and I knew I had to do it. Thank you to felix and giri in the chat for helping me decide on the duck wearees and the exasperated friend, I feel better after writing this.

#

Moving to a university town wasn’t all that bad he decided. Sure the rent was a little steep and there were never any ready-meals or sandwiches left in the supermarket by lunchtime, but there was a frequent train service to where he worked and no shortage of coffee shops so he couldn’t complain. Even the student nights weren’t that bad, drunken young adults mostly contained to the bars and clubs that lined the towns main street. In a way it almost made him feel more energetic, seeing the bright faces of students walking to and from classes and reminding him of his own university experience. 

But sometimes, things happened that made Kun wonder if he and his friends were this bad back in their day, or was the newer generation of 20-something-year-olds just a little bit weirder. Ten would probably argue that when they were in their early twenties, people ten years older than them definitely gossiped about their fashion choices and dumb late-night decisions. But his best friend wasn’t here right now, and Kun was convinced that the scene unfolding in front of him was by far the strangest thing he had yet to see. 

He was doing a bit of late-night shopping. A long day of work and a sad excuse for food in his apartment dragged him to the store at nine pm to stock up on some emergency groceries. Somewhere in between picking up a half loaf of soda bread and deciding which sweet potato he wanted to buy, Kun heard a faint noise in the distance that made him turn his head in confusion. It sounded like - a duck? But the river was a good fifteen-minute walk from here and there was a major road in the way, so it would be nearly impossible for a duck to make it to the store. Just as he had placed his chosen tuber in his basket and was moving on to grab some other vegetables he heard the sound again, but closer this time. Craning his head he tried to spot where the noise was coming from, but he couldn’t see anyone else in the aisles apart from a store worker who looked far too tired to be here right now. Convinced that his exhausted and hungry mind was just conjuring up noises, Kun grabbed some carrots and mushrooms and turned to walk into the next aisle when he saw them.

Three students, no older than 20, were standing just inside the door beside the cereal. One of them had his head in his hands while the other two had wide smiles on their faces. Kun had no idea what they were laughing at but already felt himself wanting to giggle. It was only when they turned to walk further down the aisle that he realised the extent of this fever-dream situation he was in. 

The two grinning boys were walking in tandem, their legs tied together by a hideous neon pink tie with bright orange stripes. And on their non-tied feet were what seemed to be fuzzy yellow duck slippers. Slippers that when they took a step made a loud, obnoxious quacking noise. Kun was partially relieved that his hearing wasn’t actually failing him at thirty, but also just confused. The boy in front was trying to walk ahead of his two friends without getting too far away from them since apparently, they were shopping together.

The tallest of the trio reached up and pulled two different packets off the shelf. “Who said we needed rice cakes?” “I said we didn’t have any, not that we needed them.” 

Kun realised that staring was not a good idea and actually returned to his shopping list, but he kept glancing towards the trio of possibly sleep-deprived students as they bickered their way through deciding on what kind of rice cakes they should buy (they settled on sea salt) before moving on again. This time, when the joined pair took their duck step the slippers each made a slightly different noise which sounded like two depressed birds harmonising. The sound was so outrageously hilarious that Kun had to stifle a laugh in his elbow. The students had no such inhibitions and burst into hysterical laughter right in the middle of the aisle.

“I don’t know you. We are not friends.” As the third student turned on his heel and shuffled quickly onwards, his two friends attempted to follow him. “Xiaojun no wait, come back!”

In the space of the ten seconds since they last took a step however they seemed to have forgotten they were tied together and promptly fell over one another. Kun hid his face and his laughter in the large bag of rice he had picked up as the pair on the ground tried to stand up again. But every time they moved their free feet to get their balance the duck slippers quacked and they collapsed onto the ground again in fits of giggles. 

By this stage, Xiaojun had almost reached where Kun was spending far too long contemplating the rice in his hand and he knew he would have to move on in order to not seem creepy. So he placed his rice carefully into his shopping basket and turned to walk down the aisle - towards the duck duo. He couldn’t help but catch the young student’s eye and his face must have given him away.

“I promise I don’t know them.” It was said in such a deadpan voice that Kun couldn’t help his laughter. He remembered being that friend back in university too, and it was nice to know that a decade later and the nature of students hadn’t changed much. He also remembered how important his dumb friends were in keeping him sane throughout the course of his studies. “They seem like great company, I wouldn’t write them off so quickly.” He hoped he didn’t sound creepy, so he gave his best ‘I’m not weird I promise’ smile to the student and kept walking. 

He walked past the pair who were still sitting on the ground, apparently strategising about how to stand up. “If we put the weight on our tied feet at the same time we should be able to stand up.” “But Hendery, what about the ducks?” They both burst into giggles again and their joy was contagious, lifting Kun’s tiredness from his bones as he kept his eyes focused straight in front of him. 

As he unpacked his basket onto the self-checkout desk he kept his ears peeled for the sounds of ducks marching through the store. Sure enough, as he was finishing up packing his bags there was a steady rhythm of ‘step-quack-step-quack-step-quack’ making its way towards him. He grabbed his two bags and looked up towards the noise, where he saw the trio of students walking side-by-side down the aisles. Kun grinned as they almost tripped again when one of the two duck-footed boys stopped suddenly to look at something on a shelf. “Yangyang you need to warn me if you’re going to stop!” The blonde got a thump on the arm and muttered something under his breath before they set off marching again. 

Kun turned and walked out of the store with a grin on his face and his new-found good mood lasted until he fell asleep later that night. Plenty of people had told him that moving to a university town would be a bad idea. But Kun now argued that it was definitely one of his better ideas so far. 

(He spotted the trio of students again one day as he was walking home from the train station. The one who had declared he didn’t know the duck-slippers pair was wearing what looked to be a leather jacket with at least a dozen bells hung off it with bright yellow string. He jingled with every step he took and his other two friends were walking behind him, clutching one another in fits of giggles. Kun grinned to himself the whole way home and made sure to text his old roommate Sicheng to ask how he was getting on.)


End file.
